50 Web2.0 Ways to Tell Your Story

Digital Storytelling on a PC

PC mobile labs in the middle and high schools should have these programs loaded. The students will be able to create digital stories using these tools in their lab. If you are an elementary teacher with a PC, you can learn to use these programs for teaching purposes. Both PhotoStory3 and Windows Movie Maker are covered in a one-day workshop.

1. Explore examples of completed PhotoStory3 projects
Grandma's Story
*note use of imported music and length of music clips (copyright)
History of Quebec City
*note the use of narration and the absence of music
Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
*several projects categorized by subject to use for sparking ideas

As teachers work to engage students in rigorous and relevant projects that cover multiple standards, the use of available digital movie-making and storytelling applications is a natural progression towards shifting our focus from teaching to learning. Bernajean Porter, author of DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories has a website www.digitales.us that provides a guide for educators on making use of digital storytelling within the classroom.

This link will take you to an article with excellent parameters to keep in mind when working on DIGITAL STORYTELLING with students.
You may also be interested in Show and Tell by Matt Bolch published in THE Journal, May 2008.


2. Select a topic and gather images
Consult curriculum guide and image sources. (copyright and citation)

Sources for Digital Photos, Video Clips, and Music
As you teach, your students will need digital media to create their projects. Finding safe and bountiful photos and video clips to use in projects is not always easy. This link will take you a portion of the wiki with links to copyright friendly material for you and your students to use.

3. Creating digital stories (PhotoStory3) and writing a plan for use in the classroom.

Photo Story 3 - Participants will explore the features of Photo Story 3 using photos, titles and effects, motion and transitions, narration, and music to create an engaging digital story. Once comfortable with the program, participants will design lessons where their students create products using Photo Story 3. Photo Story 3 is a simple to use program that can be downloaded for free from Microsoft's site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

Step by Step Instructions, customized for CMCSS teachers and students


Beginner's guide to Photo Story
*step by step guide to using PhotoStory# including easy to navigate table of contents


Guide for Creating a Photo Story From a Single Still Image Using Photo Story 3



4. Explore examples of completed Windows Movie Maker projects
Grandpa's Excellent Skateboarding Movie

5. Select a topic and gather videos and images

6. Creating digital stories (Windows Movie Maker) and writing a plan for use in the classroom

Windows Movie Maker - In this workshop teachers use photographs and video clips provided by instructors to learn the process of making movies using Windows Movie Maker in order to guide students through the process. Windows Movie Maker allows students and teachers to put photographs and video clips together to tell a story, to add effects and background music, to create and embed titles and sounds. The end product is a polished and well thought out movie trailer-like presentation that showcases the ideas, organization, and word choice traits of the 6+1 Trait Writing Model used by all students in the Clarksville-Montgomery County School district. Projects could include digital book-talks, or visually enhanced content specific presentations.

Get started with Windows Movie Maker

Creating and sharing great movies

See how to use special features to polish your movie




Atomic Learning's Video Tutorials for using Windows Movie Maker

7. Discussion of evaluation of digital projects
Evaluation tool from Digitales


Digital Storytelling on ANY computer

VoiceThread



Digital Storytelling on a Mac

Mobile labs in the elementary schools will have all of the iLife programs loaded. All but 2 elementary schools have Photobooth and Comic Life on their mobile lab. Those schools that don't have it on their mobile lab are very likely to have newer flat-panel iMacs that do have the programs. Both Photobooth and Comic Life rely on the built-in iSight camera on the MacBooks and new iMacs.

Class Outline and Background (Please click on this link before continuing)


Sources for Digital Photos and Video Clips

As you teach, your students will need digital media to create their projects. Finding safe and bountiful photos and video clips to use in projects is not always easy. This link will take you a portion of the wiki with links to copyright friendly material for you and your students to use.

iLife Tools

The programs in the iLife suite give you the basics for creating media-rich and engaging material. The resources below give you every thing you need. Before long, you and your students will be masters of making simple, powerful projects that encourage them to take an active role in their learning.

iPhoto
Ideas - Cards, Books (outlined below), Calendars, Slideshows, and Quicktime Movies
Project: Digital Class Book
1. Import your photos into iPhoto
2. Select the photos you want to use.
3. Click on the Book option in the bottom toolbar.
4. Choose a theme. The themes named Travel, Contemporary, Folio, Classic, Story Book, Portfolio, Year Book, and Catalog all have text elements to allow your students to create books that look professionally made.
5. Click CHOOSE THEME.
6. Click FILE and PRINT to print the book on your own printer instead of paying for Apple's professionally printed version.

(For more video tutorials, checkout Apple's iPhoto Tutorials. Click here and pick topics from the box on the right.)

Garageband
Ideas - Original Songs that are free from copyright issues, Slideshows with Music (outlined below), and Podcast Episodes
More Ideas for Using iTunes and Podcasts in this PDF

Project: Take a PowerPoint, Turn it into a Movie, and Give it a Musical Score
In this project, we will use music to emphasize the voice of a story that was digitally created as a PowerPoint. You will need a PowerPoint slideshow. Then, you will save the PowerPoint as a Quicktime movie in your Movies folder. Next, you will open a new Garageband project by choosing "Score a Movie". Finally, add the movie to one track and any voiceovers and music to the others and share it out. It may sound complicated, but I have seen consistent success with 2nd through 5th graders.

Part I: Preparing the PowerPoint as a Movie
1. Start with a PowerPoint. It can be one that was used to display a student written story or a part of a presentation for a report.
2. Next click on the SLIDESHOW menu and then click on SLIDE TRANSITION. If you don't have a transition that automatically advances after every slide, the PowerPoint movie won't add to Garageband correctly.
3. When the SLIDE TRANSITION window opens, Choose a transition any Effect you would like except "Cut Through Black", "Random Transition", or "No Transition".
4. Click to put a checkmark in the box beside AUTOMATICALLY AFTER SECONDS. Put a number for how long you believe it will take to read/share the information on that slide if you adding timings to slides individually. If you want to make all slides have the same amount of time, type a number that shows how long you believe it would take to read/share information from your longest slide.
5. If you are adding transitions to each slide individually, click APPLY and repeat steps 2-5 for every slide. If you are applying the same transition and timing to every slide, click APPLY TO ALL.
SlideTransition.png

6. Once all slides have automatically timed transitions, you are ready to save your PowerPoint as a movie. Click on FILE and SAVE AS...
7. When the window opens, change WHERE to say MOVIES.PowerPointSaveToMovies.png
8. Next, change FORMAT to say POWERPOINT MOVIES (QUICKTIME FORMAT).PowerPointSaveAsMovie.png
9. Then click SAVE. This will create a Quicktime movie in your Movies folder. Garageband looks in the Movies folder for content to add to its projects.

Part II: Adding a Movie to Garageband and Scoring it to Emphasize Voice
1. Open Garageband.
2. Import your movie.
3. Add musical building blocks, called loops, to the area below your imported movie by clicking and dragging the colored block beside the loop. You can build your own unique song or use premade songs, called Jingles. Be sure to pick songs that match your movie's feel.
4. When you have finished adding musical loops to your movie, export it to share with others.

(For more video tutorials, checkout Apple's Garageband Tutorials. Click here and pick topics from the box on the right.)

iMovie HD
Ideas - Movies showcasing content knowledge and creativity (outlined below), Vodcast Episodes
More Ideas for Using iTunes and Podcasts in this PDF

Project: Student Produced Short Film
This project will include a title, images, and narration by the student. It can be saved as a Quicktime movie. Once it is a Quicktime movie, you can transfer them to your laptop with a thumbdrive and do a number of great things to publish their work.

1. Open iMovie HD by clicking on the icon. iMovieHDicon.png
2. Create your iMovie HD with a title, digital images, and student narration. iMovieStartScreen.png
3. Share iMovie.ShareiMovie.png


iTunes
Ideas - Subscribing to Podcasts; Creating playlists of digital media on a topic as evidence of research
More Ideas for Using iTunes and Podcasts in this PDF

iDVD (only useful on teacher MacBook or iBook G4 with DVD-burner; see your System Profiler - Disc Burning category to be sure)
Ideas - Creating finished DVDs with student-created media from mobile lab

iWeb
Create your own website to include your podcasts, photos, and blogs. Post it to our www2.cmcss.net server.

MacBook Tools

These programs are available to use on MacBooks and flat-panel iMacs purchased in 2007. Photobooth is available on any MacBook or flat-panel iMac that have been purchased since, but Comic Life may not be. All MacBooks in the elementary mobile labs have both.

Photo Booth
Ideas - take digital pictures that can be used in iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, and Comic Life,

Project: Take Photos and Send to iPhoto to Turn into a Book
1. Gather objects to photograph. Hold one in front of the built-in camera (the black square above the screen).
2. Click on the Photo Booth icon to launch.
3. Click on the red camera icon to take a picture. The program will begin to count backwards from 3 to 1 and then take the picture.
4. The new picture will show in the photo dock below the main window. (Repeat steps 1-3 for every object you wish to photograph.)
5. Switch to photo review by clicking one of the pictures in the photo dock.
6. Transfer the pictures one at a time to iPhoto by clicking on the iPhoto button in the toolbar above the photo dock. iPhoto will open and its window will jump in front of Photo Booth's. To transfer another, simply click on the Photo Booth icon in your main OSX dock.

Comic Life
Ideas - Create a digital comic book using content knowledge, Create a digital graphic organizer for content

Project: Content Specific Comic Book Page

1. Get pictures into iPhoto library.
2. Open Comic Life.
3. Click and drag a PAGE TEMPLATE from the right and drop it on the blank page in the main window.
4. You will see that pictures from iPhoto's library are available to drag and drop into the picture windows.
5. Drag and drop the text bubbles from the bottom that you would like to use for dialog.
6. Drag and drop the text bubble called LETTERING to the top of your page, type the title of your comic, and click OK.
7. Save as a final document that can be viewed by others without Comic Life. In the menu bar, click on FILE. In the drop-down menu under FILE, click on EXPORT and follow over to the choice of file you would like to use.
  • "Email this Comic..." -

More tutorials on Comic Life basics at ExpertVillage.com . Click here.

ComicLife@ExpertVillageLogo.png